Setauket Greenway Analysis

I chose to map out the section of the Setauket Greenway Trail that I jog numerous times a week, a 1.5 mile stretch from the middle of East Setauket to its endpoint in Port Jefferson Station. I have been running it since I first moved here and am familiar with the trail now. Yet, even after a year it still leaves me intrigued every time I put my running sneakers on. What fascinates me is the varied topographies – both geographic and cultural – it cuts across. After leaving the residential neighborhoods the trail dips into an unexpected basin that is bordered on either side by dunes and power lines before climbing out through lush woodlands. Emerging at the top of a steep incline, the trail runs parallel to a black chain-link fence demarcating a lot of abandoned warehouses. The visual is striking: on one side of the fence is the paved trail and a patch of landscaped shrubbery. On the other side, rusted graffiti-splashed corrugated metal, gaping black doorways and empty windows. There is something disturbingly post-apocalyptic about the setting; it speaks of man-made ruin and neglect, something I don’t expect to find in the middle of the woods. …show more content…
At one end is residential East Setauket/Stony Brook – split-level ranches with multiple cars in the driveway, lawns that are diligently watered (despite the ongoing drought), the studied quiet of Long Island suburbia. At the other end the trail literally empties out into a service lot in Port Jefferson Station where homeless individuals curl up under trees for shade and sleep in summer and food pantries draw large crowds on the weekend (contrasting the more affluent just down the hill in the coffee shops, boutiques and restaurants of Port